Category: Reviews

Book Review: The Story Girl

On By cherylmahoneyIn Reviews, Young Adult1 Comment

I’m interrupting my usual Friday programming to instead do a book review, because today is an interesting anniversary–at least, if you’re somewhat intensely interested in L. M.  Montgomery!  Her dearest friend and cousin, Frederica Campbell, died on January 25th, 1919, a victim of the post-WWI flu epidemic.  That makes today the 100th anniversary.

Montgomery mourned Frederica, nicknamed Frede, for the rest of her life, and her presence looms very large in Montgomery’s journals and life.  So much so that it seems very strange to me that she died a hundred years ago–but I can never quite feel that Montgomery has been dead for over 75 years either.  I’ve been rereading the second volume of Montgomery’s selected journals, which includes Frede’s death (which is why I noticed the anniversary date) and it’s quite moving.

So in a kind of acknowledgement, today I’m reviewing The Story Girl, which I read this month for the L. M. Montgomery January Reading Challenge, and which I didn’t remember was dedicated to Frede until I started it.  Kismet!

The Story Girl stands a little apart from Montgomery’s other novels, which almost all have one girl or young woman at their center (Rainbow Valley is the other exception).  Despite what the title would suggest, The Story Girl has an entire circle of children at its center: brothers Bev and Felix King, Toronto visitors to Prince Edward Island, their cousins Felicity, Dan, and Cecily King, neighbor and faux-relative Sara Ray, hired boy Peter Craig, and cousin Sara Stanley, the titular Story Girl.  The group romps through a PEI summer and autumn, brush up against tragedy real or imagined, laugh a lot, and listen to many, many stories from the Story Girl. Continue reading “Book Review: The Story Girl” →

Book Review: How I Killed Pluto

On By cherylmahoneyIn Reviews2 Comments

I was recently feeling that there wasn’t enough science in my life (I don’t know, it was a feeling) so I did what I usually do when I want more of a topic–I found a book about it.  Specifically, I went to the library and looked up “astronomy” in the Dewey Decimal system and went over to that shelf to see what I could find.  And so I stumbled onto How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming by Mike Brown–and it was excellent.

Mike Brown is the astronomer who found a large object beyond Pluto, igniting the debate (or at least, seriously heating it up) about what exactly a planet is, and whether Pluto qualifies.  His book is a kind of astronomy memoir, about his work looking for large objects beyond Pluto, in the Kuiper Belt.  The one that caused the controversy, nicknamed Xena and eventually named Eris, wasn’t the first one he found, so the story is something of a journey through near-misses, other discoveries, Mike’s own engagement, marriage and birth of his daughter along the way, and finally the great Pluto controversy.  It was very readable throughout and really fascinating. Continue reading “Book Review: How I Killed Pluto” →

Book Review: Level Up Your Life

On By cherylmahoneyIn Reviews2 Comments

I’ve had Level Up Your Life by Steve Kamb on my to-read list for many months.  January is always a good time to read books about goals and intentions, so I finally picked this one up.  And I’m so glad I did, because it was an excellent start to the year!

Level Up Your Life approaches life transformation from a video game, geek perspective.  Kamb tells his own story throughout, about his love of video games when he was young (and still), and how he used the game mechanics of video games, with a little guidance from the Hero’s Journey classic story arc, to transform his life into something far more epic.  Basically, he set audacious goals, assigned experience points for completing tasks and quests, and has set his sights on “leveling-up” to Level 50, which would mean living his best life, as his best self.

I feel like this is a great book for a person with a certain mindset–one shared by probably most people I know.  It would help to have some sci fi interests, as he draws heavily from superheroes, movies and video games for his examples.  I knew the movies, and even for the video games I only knew by name, it was easy to follow the points he was making.  You also have to like the idea of approaching your life and completing your goals as something you can keep score on and continuously improve.  Which I found to be a pretty cool idea, actually! Continue reading “Book Review: Level Up Your Life” →

Mini-Monday: Tamora Pierce Revisited

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, ReviewsLeave a comment

I’ve been doing a lot of audiobooks recently, and I decided to revisit a few Tamora Pierce books–although rather than listening to favorites, I ended up revisiting a few I was on the edge about, to see how they’d feel on another read.  The results were mixed!

Street Magic

Tamora Pierce has two big, long-ranging magical series with subsets within them, Tortall and the Circle of Magic books.  While everything is good, I give a definite edge to the Tortall series.  However–Street Magic is my favorite of the Magic Circle books, and I was happy to see it held up well on a reread.

The Magic Circle books center around four young mages, Briar, Sandry, Daja and Tris.  The first four books develop their foster sibling relationship and the discovery of their respective magical gifts.  The next set of four books sends each of them on separate adventures.  Street Magic follows Briar, gifted with plant magic, as he takes on his first student, street kid Evvy, and tangles with the gangs interested in Evvy’s stone magic. Continue reading “Mini-Monday: Tamora Pierce Revisited” →

Book Review: Enlightenment Now

On By cherylmahoneyIn ReviewsLeave a comment

I stumble on books in a lot of ways—including, apparently, The New Yorker.  I don’t actually read it, but I occasionally encounter an article online.  Somewhere I found an article discussing Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker.  It made the book sound intriguing enough that I picked it up—though it may have led me astray a little too!

The New Yorker article gave me the impression this was a book about how, contrary to the popular view, the world (society, the human experience) is in fact improving.  Considering how often the news cycle makes me feel the exact opposite–yes, please, I’d like to hear that argument!  And that part of Enlightenment Now was very good–but I’m not sure that’s actually what Pinker intended his book to be about.

The book opens with, as wasn’t too shocking because of the title, a discussion on the history of the enlightenment and enlightenment values.  Not fascinating, to be honest, but engaging enough.  Then he got into the section The New Yorker wrote about, and made a pretty compelling case.  In brief, taking the long view (over a few decades, perhaps a couple of centuries), life expectancy has increased, poverty has decreased, diet is improved, health is improved, democracy has spread, literacy has increased, violence has fallen, civil rights have increased, standard of living has risen…and all by huge margins.

Now, that’s taking the global view, and Pinker is careful to note that he’s not saying any of these problems have gone away, and that there isn’t still poverty and disease and violence–but looking at the numbers, on a global scale, the world is a better place than it was even 50 years ago.  It’s hard for us living it to get that perspective. Continue reading “Book Review: Enlightenment Now” →